With The Soft Skin, French auteur François Truffaut turned in a nervous tale of an infidelity gone sour. This tight drama has been one of Truffaut's lesser-seen movies, but his precocious mastery of film is on full display here. In the wake of The 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim, however, its 1964 release got an underwhelming response from critics and audiences alike. Although many dismissed this intimate drama as Truffaut's crude homage to his directing idol, Alfred Hitchcock, the Criterion Collection edition reveals it as the taut, economically told, enthralling little flick it deserves to be seen as.

For The Soft Skin, Truffaut and co-screenwriter Jean-Louis Richard concocted a deceptively simple tale of a married, complacent middle-aged literature expert pursuing an affair with an airline stewardess. When Paris-based literary magazine editor Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) is called upon to deliver a lecture on Balzac in Lisbon, Portugal, he becomes entranced by a beautiful air hostess on his flight. Upon checking into his hotel, he discovers the woman and her fellow airline crew members lodging in the same building. Exchanging furtive glances with the stewardess in the elevator, he finds a way to contact her and arrange a meeting over drinks. The congenial Nicole (Françoise Dorleac) has a yearning, haunted quality that Pierre finds attractive, leading to a passionate affair. On the return flight, Nicole slips Pierre her phone number and the two endeavor to see each other whenever they can. Despite his heavy schedule and family duties, Pierre arranges to accompany Nicole to Reims, France, where he is scheduled to introduce a film at a literature conference. In attempting to hide the affair from his professional colleagues and mercurial wife, Franca (Nelly Benedetti), Pierre goes to semi-absurd lengths to keep Nicole's part in his life as compartmentalized as possible. Truffaut portrays Pierre and Nicole's feelings for each other as genuine, sympathetically setting up the affair as the intersection of two complex, lonely people who know their union has an expiration date - long before it comes to a grim end.

According to the liner notes included in Criterion's edition of The Soft Skin, the film failed with critics and audiences in 1964 mainly because of the portrayal of Pierre, which Truffaut intentionally made a pathetic figure. Some brought up the implausibility of the story, questioning what attraction a pasty-faced, middle-aged man would have to someone as lovely as Nicole (subtly played by the tragically fated Dorleac, best known for her turn opposite sister Catherine Deneuve in Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort). Thanks to the sensitive work of the two lead actors and Truffaut's incisive touch, however, it ends up being an open-minded, realistic portrayal of infidelity. Desailly's portrayal makes the viewer feel for this man who tentatively decides to do an impulsive act (no serial adulterer, this guy). Meanwhile, Dorleac conveys Nicole's simplicity and her need for someone like Pierre who can stimulate her budding intellect without being patronizing about it. Truffaut's callouts to Hitchcock aren't overt - they function more as a crafty way of bending time to suit the needs of the story - and can be seen in a few scenes. In other scenes, bleak, suspenseful humor is incorporated as in a bit involving Pierre agonizing inside a cafe opposite a smarmy conference hander while Nicole is harassed by a horny stranger in the darkness outside.

Aside from a melodramatic ridiculous finale, Truffaut's sophisticated way with tight, controlled cinematic storytelling permeates The Soft Skin. Criterion's edition brings some luster to this overlooked entry in Truffaut's filmography.

The Blu Ray:

The Criterion Collection edition of The Soft Skin comes in a clear plastic Blu-sized keep case with a subtle design. Chapter titles are printed on the interior paper insert, while the accompanying supplementary info is printed in a simple foldout instead of a stapled booklet. Molly Haskell's text analysis of the film takes up most of the fold-out's real estate, with hardly any photography - hopefully this isn't the start of a trend with Criterion (although I appreciate in-depth essays, their packaging benefits from a nice text-to-image balance in the design).

Video

The Soft Skin's black and white photography is given a good presentation in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio on Criterion's Blu Ray. The graininess of the source print is kept in pristine shape, while a digital restoration using an original 35mm negative has resulted in a pleasing image free of blemishes, jitter and age. While the photography tends to be low-contrast and a little wan looking (as with Jules and Jim), it's lovingly modulated with nice detail and rich, pleasant darks.

Audio

The uncompressed monoaural soundtrack is given a clean mix that highlights George Delerue's evocative score, while the dialogue is relatively free of pops or distortion. The disc's optional English-language subtitle track is a new translation of the film, with just one mistake (in one bit, the names of two characters are transposed).

Extras

A feature-length Audio Commentary from screenwriter Jean-Louis Richard and Truffaut scholar Serge Toubiana - recorded in 2000, the track is spoken in French with subtitles that alternate their observations with film dialogue; The Complexity of Influence, a 12-minute video essay with critic Kent Jones discussing Truffaut's inspirations and following; in the fascinating half-hour documentary Monsieur Truffaut Meets Mr. Hitchcock, film historian Robert Fischer interviews Hitchcock and Truffaut's colleagues and family members on their friendship and the making of their iconic book Truffaut Hitchcock; an 11-minute interview with Truffaut from a 1965 television program has the director sharing his methodology while scenes from The Soft Skin play (this segment contains spoilers); the package's fold-out insert also contains a critical essay on the film by Molly Haskell.

Final Thoughts

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery in 1964's The Soft Skin, a captivating adultery-gone-wrong tale that amounted to Françoise Truffaut's homage to his idol, Alfred Hitchcock. Strong performances by Jean Desailly and Françoise Dorleac highlight this suspenseful, bleakly humorous and heartbreakingly realistic drama. Recommended.

Matt Hinrichs is a designer, artist, film critic and jack-of-all-trades in Phoenix, Arizona. Since 2000, he has been blogging at Scrubbles.net. 4 Color Cowboy is his repository of Western-kitsch imagery, while other films he's experienced are logged at Letterboxd. He also welcomes friends on Twitter @4colorcowboy.